1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a card and document positioning device for use with an imprinter having a roller imprinting mechanism and in particular, to a device that utilizes a spring mechanism and pegs to enable positioning either of cards having printing on the bottom or top of the card face or of small size cards at the appropriate place for imprinting various sizes of forms.
2. Related Applications
This application relates to co-pending application Ser. No. 155,216, filed Feb. 12, 1988, entitled "DOCUMENT AND CARD POSITIONING DEVICE".
3. Description of the Related Art
Many organizations that deal with the public utilize plastic identification cards having the name of the customer, client or patient embossed on the face of the cards to imprint the identification information on invoices, order forms or other informational forms. Particularly in large institutions such as hospitals, although each embossing machine is generally used on only one type of card, more than one card size may be used in various parts of the institution on a variety of different sizes of forms. In addition, cards having the embossed information on the top or the bottom may be used in a particular institutional location to imprint the various sizes of forms.
There are three standard card styles that are often used in institutions such as hospitals. Two of these employ the standard credit card size, known as CR 80, which may be embossed either at the top or bottom of the card. The other card size, known as CR 50, is of a similar width as the CR 80 card but is not as large from top to bottom of the face of the card. The CR 50 card may be cut from a card the size of a CR 80 card with one portion of the CR 80-size card being used for a patient arm band and the other portion that is the size of a CR 50 card being used for patient identification cards to imprint forms. A preformed plastic product for this latter use is made by Bio-Logics Products, Inc. (West Jordon, Utah).
A number of different embossing machines have been developed commercially to assist in the automated form imprinting process, particularly in large institutional settings. Thus, the AFI Farrington machine (Model 45 Data Recorder, Data Card Corporation, Minneapolis, Minn.), the Pitney Bowes machine (Model 6700 Electric Plastic. Card Imprinter, Pitney Bowes, Stamford, Conn.) and the National Business Systems machine (Model NBS 306, National Business Systems, Moonachie, N.J.) are examples of the most commonly used products for this purpose in hospitals. The latter two machine styles are very similar to each other. The general structure of all of the machines comprises a flat area (platen) on which to place the cards and forms, and a cover containing a roller mechanism that moves over the form on the card when the cover is lowered on top of the flat area. The problem that exists with these machines is that there is no quick, easy and accurate way to align the various forms over the appropriate place on the embossed card before closing the cover.
To solve this problem, a number of makeshift and temporary measures are sometimes taken by those either responsible for use of the machines or trying to increase machine sales. Colored tape may be placed on the surface upon which the cards and forms are placed to indicate where the corners and edges of the cards and forms are to be placed. This requires careful visual alignment of the corners and edges with the tape. Furthermore, the cards may be moved out of place by the action of placing the forms over them and the forms may be moved out of the proper position by the action of shutting the cover of the machine or by the action of the imprinting roller of the machine. Plastic clips designed to hold the smaller cards in place may also be installed on the surface of the machine, but this does not assist in placement of the forms over the cards.
Another suboptimal solution is the placement of a compressible substance, such as weather-stripping, to mark the appropriate locations. Although this alleviates the problem of placing the forms and cards in the appropriate place, the compressible substance often does not compress sufficiently when the machine cover is brought down resulting in lightly or incompletely imprinted forms because the roller does not produce sufficient pressure on the forms.
Either of these prior solutions also requires that the machines must be retrofitted by addition of the tape or compressible substance after a careful, time-consuming determination of where on the platen to place the particular size and type of cards to be used with that machine.
Although it is standard to have the area for embossing the various forms located in a particular portion of the form such as the upper right corner, the location of other information on the forms very near to the area to be imprinted and the difficulty of accurately placing the appropriate area of the form over the correct area of the card due to the various locations of embossing of the cards and the various sizes of cards, often results in imprinting misplacement. In addition to causing a disorderly appearance of the imprinted form, such misplacement may have more serious consequences. Thus, in the hospital setting, misplacement of the imprinting on a laboratory test result form may make the results unreadable and necessitate repeated tests or lead to inaccurate diagnoses or prescriptions. If the patient name and/or medical record number are unreadable due to imprinting of the information over other printed matter, the wrong patient may be treated or billed depending on the form being used.
The co-pending application Ser. No. 155,216 provides a document and card positioning device for imprinters such as the Data Card Model 45 machine in which the cover evenly depresses card guide corners on the device prior to the imprinting process. The disclosure of this co-pending application is incorporated herein by reference. In summary, the document and card positioning device of the co-pending application comprises a spring-loaded card guide form placed beneath the platen of the imprinting machine. The card guide form has raised corners for positioning of the card and a plurality of pegs protruding upward through the platen for positioning of the form to be imprinted. Depending on the position of imprinting on the forms used on a particular work site, different peg locations on the card guide form may be appropriate. The present invention utilizes the pegs and spring-loaded mechanism of the co-pending application but provides a modified device for use with imprinters of other designs.
Imprinters such as that of Data Card Model 850 Series have rollers that are lowered from the side and roll across the area to be imprinted. Because imprinters such as the Data Card imprinter do not have a cover that is lowered on to the printing area before the roller comes across, when the device disclosed in the co-pending application is used with a Data Card machine, the roller strikes the pegs of the card positioning device from the side of the pegs. This has the potential of causing damage to the roller and/or to the pegs of the device and may also result in a form that is poorly imprinted or not imprinted.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a device for easily aligning a variety of forms over the appropriate area of embossed cards of a particular size on an imprinting machine in which machine the cover does not press down upon the printing area before the roller moves across the printing area.
It is another object of the invention to provide a device constructed so that it may be permanently modified to be used to align any one of the most common types of embossed card on an imprinting machine.
It is another object of the invention to provide a device for aligning embossed cards and forms that may be installed easily and quickly on an imprinting machine having a roller mechanism that impinges the imprinting area from the side.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be more fully apparent from the following disclosure and appended claims.